The Look
by Drag0nst0rm
Summary: Terence has a very special look he gets sometimes. It says, very plainly, "You don't want to know." Arthur sees rather a lot of it. Now a collection on oneshots and drabbles
1. The Look

Arthur loved Gawain like a brother. He really did. And he knew his nephew felt the same about Terence. So when he ordered Terence off on a mission to find Mordred, he didn't blame the knight for being worried.

He _did,_ however, blame his nephew for what he said next.

"One man against an army? Let me go with him - "

Given his worry, he could excuse his nephew for thinking he would send a single man - even if that man was Terence - against an army.

It was the rest of it that bothered him.

One man against an army was rather bad odds, yes.

But what - exactly - had the two of them been getting up to on those quests of theirs that made him think _two_ men against an army was any better?

Terence must have been reading his mind again - and he was only half sure he was joking about that- because he shot him a look. It said, very plainly, _"You don't want to know."_

Arthur was rather familiar with that look.

Some centuries later, he awoke to his knights and their ladies standing around grinning at him. The world felt odd though, the very air strange on his skin, and even his knights looked a bit different. Why did Sir Griflet look so comfortable with that sword? Since when did Lynet have a granddaughter that she could carry in her arms?

And why on earth was Gawain's armor pink?

Terence, dressed rather formally, come to think of it, shot him the look.

Arthur smiled as the world settled into a more familiar shape again.

. . . . .

 **A/N: Gawain lost a bet, if anyone was wondering. Gawain's line is more or less from The Legend of the King. I'm pretty sure it's paraphrased, but I was mostly just too lazy to look it up.**


	2. The Greatest Fighter in All England

After the fall of Camelot, bandits and recreant knights became common once more. Many thought a holy man surrounded only by children would make an easy target. He didn't even have a sword, after all.

Guinglain quickly taught them the value of a cudgel.

Gawain was rather proud.


	3. Family

**A/N: AU for The Quest of the Fair Unknown**

. . . . .

"How old did you say Guinglain was?" Terence asked.

"Seventeen, he thinks. Why?" Gawain looked sideways at his squire. Something was up.

Terence counted back. "Good. I wasn't looking forward to dueling you."

" _Dueling_ me?"

Terence looked at him patiently. "Gawain," he said slowly, "you're married to my _sister_. You have a son. I'm _not_ an uncle. I had to be sure."

It finally clicked. Gawain was outraged. "You didn't honestly think - "

Terence shrugged. "I had to be sure, didn't I?"

Gawain was fuming.

"Just be glad Ganscotter did the math before he confronted you."

Gawain went pale.

"And you're the one explaining to Lorie that she has a stepson. For that matter, don't you think Guinglain should know you're married now? And I know you don't want to tell your brothers you're married, but at the very least, Arthur should know about this. I mean, he's royalty, even if it is distantly. And Luneta will never let you hear the end of it if - "

Gawain groaned.

. . . . .

 **A/N: Because there were so many lovely implications that were never covered.**


	4. Carl of Carlisle

When the Carl of Carlisle first learned that his daughter had decided to move out, he cursed that she had chosen a place so far away.

A year later, as his walls were breached by Mordred's men, he just prayed that she was far enough.


	5. Secrets

Gaheris couldn't decide if he wanted to laugh or get angry.

"So you're telling me," he said slowly, "that you have a son. And you're married. To Terrence's sister. Amd in twenty years you never bothered to mention it, and you're only mentioning it now because since we're Avalon for the forseeable future you thought you should introduce me to my sister-in-law."

Gawain winced. "Gary - "

"Anything else I should know?"

" . . . No."

"Are you sure? Because I could have sworn I heard at least two people call your former squire, 'Your Grace'".

"All right, maybe a few things. It's a long story."

Gaheris finally gave in and laughed. "Go on, then. We've got time."


	6. It's a Good Thing They Died Together

Gawain tells the story ruefully, a touch self-deprecatingly, and with a hint of concern hiding behind it.

Unlike some of his knights, he's humble enough to laugh at himself, but there really isn't much funny about a knight that could defeat him at high noon and drag him back to his castle. Nor is there much funny about the wounds from the "interrogation" that Lynet is currently fussing over.

Arthur listens to the tale wearily. Gawain concludes it by telling how he managed to play dead and ambush the guards when they were sent to bury him.

"Where was Terence in all this?" Lynet demands.

Gawain waves a hand but aborts the movement quickly, wincing. "Oh, he's . . . elsewhere."

"Ah," Lynet says and quickly busies herself with more bandages.

 _Children,_ Arthur thinks fondly. Not as foolish as many of his other couriers, but children nonetheless, whispering their secrets far too loudly and giggling over them when they thought their parents couldn't hear.

He might not know how exactly how much faerie blood Terence has, but he _does_ know what the Other World is, thank you very much. They weren't the only ones who had been there.

* * *

Terence tells the story with blood drenching his clothes and staining his teeth, and the only thing wilder than his hair is the look in his eyes. His hands are shaking, and Arthur thinks he is quite possibly the only man in the court who sees the grief underneath the danger that has sent everyone else scrambling back. Eileen is lost in the crush and having little luck elbowing her way forward.

"I have avenged Gawain, my lord," he says, and he gives that bow between equals that always seems strangely right.

Arthur stands slowly from his throne and looks at the . . . squire . . . who has just appeared in the middle of his court. "Are you hurt, Terence?" The rest of his words catch up to him. "You've done _what?"_

Terence stares at him. "You didn't know." He swallows. "I - sire, Gawain - I shouldn't have left him, but I had business with my father, and I never dreamed - " He runs a blood stained hand through his hair. "I heard the news that Sir Medraut had killed Gawain upon my return." Tears threaten the corners of his eyes, but he holds them back as stubbornly as any prince. "His men are dead, and I have taken him to receive faerie justice, as is fitting for the husband of the daughter of Ganscotter."

Gawain was _married?_

They were going to have a long talk about things you had to tell your king, not to mention your uncle.

Terence sways.

Arthur steps forwards and holds him steady. "Terence, Gawain is fine. He faked his death to sneak away from them. The men must have lied to their lord to avoid punishment."

Terence stares at him for a long moment.

Then Eileen is there - and isn't she supposed to be Gawain's love, not Terence's? - and holding onto him and reassuring him, and when Terence starts to fall again. Eileen and Arthur catch him, and Kai hurries forward to carry him off.

Well.

This was . . . unusual.

Even for Camelot.

* * *

The way the knights he sends out tell the story, the servants that were in the castle are fine.

The castle which is no longer standing.

At all.

* * *

The way Terence tells the story later, blushing, he might have possibly lost his control for a few hours.

There's a very long talk, but something had to be done about the knight, and it's probably about time Terence got knighted anyways.

* * *

The way Ganscotter tells the story in his private records, he'd locked the man up so he wouldn't do anything more befitting the Unseelie court.

That doesn't change the fact that he'd never seen either of his children so devastated, and to see them both so destroyed at once, not to mention Elaine . . .

He doesn't regret killing the man when the truth finally comes out. The man had killed plenty of others, and he had still put that terrible expression on his children's faces.

The relief in them when they learn everything will be all right is a balm to his old heart. He can't resist Lorie's pleas to bring Gawain here to recover. He's rather eager to see the man himself.

* * *

Robin was there in the army of Seelie vengeance. He doesn't tell the story at all.

But when one of the maids says that she thinks Lorie got the temper of the family, he laughs until he falls off the table where he was perched.


End file.
